I'm terrible at Blogging

It was a week ago yesterday that Dad Mahin had his outpatient surgery in Salina, Kansas. Surgery was supposed to start at 11:30 AM but due to longer than expected operations in the OR than anticipated, Dad was finally wheeled into surgery atl 4:30 PM. Mom & I finally reconnected with him a little after 6 PM. Since it was so late they did keep him overnight to observe his blood sugar and possible bleeding at the surgery site.

They will not close/remove the chest dialysis port until they are sure the arm port will work. The arm port will not be used until the surgery site has completely healed. It could be weeks until they actually try to do dialysis in the arm port.

Dad has been dealing with a lot of weakness since the surgery; so please, Keep Praying. Phone Calls really encourage him.

More Later.

Dad Mahin Faces Outpatient Surgery

Tomorrow, October 22, 2009, Dad Mahin will be having outpatient surgery in Salina, Kansas, appointment time is at 9:30 AM. The dialysis port on his chest has been used for 3 years. Now the doctor is wanting to remove that port and install one in his arm. An arm port failed previously, so we are rather anxious about the proposed change. The chest port was supposed to be just a temporary one all along anyways. If an infection would have sprung up around that port, being so near in proximity to his heart and lungs, his life would have been endangered. So I guess I can understand why they would want to make the change. Please pray. We'll keep you posted.

Photo from the mid 1980's

Melinda Just Got Published

Miltonvale, Kansas, has its own little weekly newspaper; it's called the Miltonvale Record. My daughter Melinda has always aspired to be a writer and just this week has been hired by the Record as the newest member on its writing staff. While her most extensive work will be writing historical essays of what happened in Miltonvale 100, 75, 50, and 25 years ago she has also been asked to write 'filler' articles. The following poem, actually prose, is her 'first-ever' published article.

The Garden

By Melinda Mahin

It started in a garden, so perfect, so pure.

No one by sin was hardened, No one from sin, poor.

Innocently Eve walked by the tree where sin lurked.

Satan, in that tree was sly, waiting souls to hurt.

"Take an apple," was his plea. "It won't hurt a thing.

God lied to you, you will see for joy it will bring."

Eve ate what was forbidden. Oh, the hurt it brought.

God knew this would happen, Now battles would be fought

It happened in a garden in the dark of night.

Jesus struggled deep within to make all things right.

The struggling, the weeping, the tears that did flow.

Jesus' heart now was breaking, through death He must go.

The pain He must endure, now weighed on His mind.

But to make all people newer, left those thoughts behind.

The prayers that were prayed that night, sent Jesus to die.

"Sin has now won this big fight", was Satan's glad cry.

It happened in a garden, at the break of dawn.

The birds that had sleeping been rejoiced now in song.

Jesus Christ, who bled and died, Now had fought and won the battles

Eve had started back in garden one.

Satan's plans were slaughtered at the victory Christ won.

All the wars he thought down pat, were conquered by God's Son.

So now there is a garden, so sweet and calm.

Christ is waiting there within to be your healing balm.

Dad Mahin Needs Prayer

Dad Mahin is in need of your prayers. This past Monday Dad's dialysis port began to fail. It continues to work well enough to warrant continued treatments for now but repair/surgery has been scheduled for October 8th.

A previous doctor has stated that Dad would only live for 2 or 3 weeks without dialysis. So pray that the current site will become fully functional or that a new site would work sucessfully. We will keep you posted.

Denny's Home from the Hospital

Just updating you that Denny got home from the Salina Hospital around 4:30, Thursday afternoon. He has not yet conquered the 'cold' that aggravated his Asthma but the medicines he is now on should keep him from a relapse.

Thanks to each of you who prayed. God hears and answers prayer.

Denny's Asthma

I had been out of the house for a little over 12 hours helping my brother move. Upon returning Monday afternoon September 7th, around 4:15 PM I became quite concerned about Denny's health. He had been sleeping on the couch all day and was breathing funny. He was breathing from his abdomen with a quite little help from his shoulders rising and falling. Pneumonia struck my mind immediately. I called wife into the room and found she had given 3 Albuterol nebulizer treatments during the day but that they didn't really bring improvement. We took a minute to count his breaths and couldn't believe that at the end of that 60 seconds he had breathed 63 times. Diane's CNA training taught her that 12 to 20 respirations was healthy and for sure NOT 63, by any stretch of the imagination.

A phone call was made, remember it was Labor Day, and of course no doctor's office was open on a holiday so a doctor on call at a nearby hospital told us to call the pediatric doctor on duty at the Salina, Kansas hospital, (50 miles away) and go prepared to spend the night with Denny probably being admitted.

The doctor at the Salina Hospital was called and he quickly concurred ... so we got to the ER there around 6:30 PM and in just a few minutes was taken to a treatment room where they put him on a oximeter, had an IV started, an oxygen mask installed, and was administered steroids to get the lungs to work right.

He would have been released that night except for this little gizmo called an oximeter. It measures the oxygen saturation in the blood stream. The doctor told us that if Denny could keep his oximeter reading at 92 or higher he could go home that evening. He could only keep it 88 to 90 with his lowest reading at 85. Every once in a while he could get it up to the mid 90's but it would drop back down again. So at 9:30 PM the doctor told us Denny would have to go on more steroids and that he would probably have to stay a few days at the hospital.

To this point Denny will have to stay till tomorrow, Thursday, September 10th, when they will start to try to wean him off his Oxygen mask. Everytime we take his mask off for bathroom breaks or his daily shower he complains he has trouble breathing. The doctor says he will probably have to take anti-asthma medicine daily from now on.

So, please pray that he can keep his oximeter readings at 92 or higher so he can go home tomrrow.

We'll keep you posted.

Remembering Stephen Mayhle

My whole family has been deeply saddened by the deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Saturday morning, April 4th, killed while answering the call of duty. One of the officers, Stephen Mayhle, is well known to my wife and me. During his high school years 5 of our 6 older childern were schoolmates of his while they all attended Indiana Wesleyan School in Dixonville, PA. I taught one class at the school in which he was a student. His wife, Shandra, also a student at IWS during the same time frame, was also a student in a few more of my classes. They were both outstanding students with promising futures. He turned 29 the day before his death.

The Mayhle's attended the Sarver Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Church and Stephen will be sorely missed at Allegheny conference functions.

Please pray for all the families of the three officers that were killed this past Saturday.